Fallen
by JLT
Summary: ***THE END***Scarlett allows her life to take a downward spiral in depression...co-written by JLT and Kitty...poem in last chap. by E.A.Robinson
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I do not own GWTW, etc, etc, etc. Co-Written by JLT and Kitty. 

**"Fallen"**

When she awoke the next morning, he was gone and had it not been for the rumpled pillow beside her, she would have thought the happenings of the night before a wild preposterous dream. She went crimson at the memory and, pulling the bed-covers up about her neck, lay bathed in the sunlight, trying to sort out the jumbled impressions in her mind.

Two things stood to the fore. She had lived for years with Rhett, slept with him and borne his child-and yet, she did not know him. The man who had carried her up the dark stairs was a stranger of whose existence she had not dreamed. And now, though she tried to make herself hate him, tried to be indignant, she could not. He had humbled her, hurt her, used her brutally through a wild mad night and she had gloried in it.

Oh, she should be ashamed, should shrink from the very memory of the hot swirling darkness! A lady, a real lady, could never hold her head up after such a night. But, stronger than shame, was the memory of rapture, of the ecstasy of surrender. For the first time in her life she had felt alive, felt passion as sweeping and primitive as the fear she had known the night she fled Atlanta, as dizzy sweet as the cold hate when she had shot the Yankee.

Rhett loved her! At least , he said he loved her, and how could she doubt it now? How odd and bewildering and how incredible that he loved her, this savage stranger with whom she had lived in such coolness. She had not known how cold she had grown, how unfeeling! If he had not broke through that carefully built up icy armor which shielded her from all that hurt and frightened her she would have been frozen through and through for the rest of her life. A lifeless creature that performed its duties like an automat that she had been and she only noticed it now . All the time she had felt hungry, even after a ten course meal she would still feel not satisfied, always craving for more. Only iron discipline and her excessive vanity had kept her from getting fat. Thus food and the yearning for it had ruled and possessed her all day long. And even in the long nights the hunger never ceased to torment her. How ravenously hungry she had been. And for the first time since the time she fled Atlanta she wasn't hungry anymore. She felt satiated, wonderfully satiated.

When she thought of meeting him again, face to face in the sober light of day, a nervous tingling embarrassment that carried with it an exciting pleasure enveloped her.

"I'm nervous as a bride," she thought. "And about Rhett!" At the very idea anticipation and youthful wonder swept through her. Why wasn't he here? How much she wished he would be here at her side. Life was full of color and wonderful promises, like it had been in the time before the war where every day had brought a new sensation. How could she have borne her dull life for so long she did not know. She must have lived in a permanent fog which shielded her at day and which became a viscous threat at night. Perhaps those dreams had only be a warning, a warning to change her life. And it would change now, she knew it. He loved her! She could have laughed aloud and danced through the room. Oh, why wasn't he there to share her mirth!

But Rhett did not appear to dinner, nor was he at his place at the supper table. The night passed, a long night during which she lay awake until dawn, her ears strained to hear his key in the latch. But he did not come. When the second day passed with no word of him, she was frantic with disappointment and fear. She went by the bank but he was not there. She went to the store and was very sharp with everyone, for every time the door opened to admit a customer she looked up with a flutter, hoping it was Rhett. She went to the lumber yard and bullied Hugh until he hid himself behind a pile of lumber. But Rhett did not seek her there.

She could not humble herself to ask friends if they had seen him. She was afraid of making inquiries among the servants, thus admitting her weak position. But she felt they knew something she did not know. Negroes always knew something. Mammy had been unusually silent since Rhett had went away. At last she decided to swallow her pride for once and ask the old woman about her husband's whereabouts. 

In the evening, after Mammy had prepared the children for bed, Scarlett caught her before she could retreat to the servant's chambers. She inwardly prepared herself for the worst and asked her old nurse with a slightly trembling voice,

"Mammy, do you know where Rhett is? I haven't seen him…hmm…since yesterday morning. I'm seriously worried. He might have had an accident, don't you think?" She actually was talking more to herself than to the black woman.

Mammy gazed at her with a solemn look that was not without pity.

"He hadn't have an accident." She paused and then hesitantly added, "Just you wait. He'll come back, sooner or later they all come back."

"What do you mean by that? Speak clearly, not in riddles! Where has he gone?" Scarlett asked impatiently. 

Mammy's face faltered.

"My poor lamb, he's done gone to that woman, to that Watling creature. I thought you knew. Everybody …" she broke off.

"Everybody in this house knows, you were going to say. The wife is always the last to know." The words were almost whispered by Scarlett. She tried desperately not to lose control, no lady ever lost control in front of the servants. She had already humiliated herself enough by making her naivety quite apparent with her foolish questions. She tried to say multiplication tables in her mind, fighting back the tears which already welt traitorously in the corner of her eyes. 

_One times one is one. Two times two is four. Three times three is nine._

She utterly failed in her attempt to smile at Mammy and only managed a grimace. "You can go now. I don't need you any longer."

When Mammy didn't move and continued to look at her with an odd expression on her face, Scarlett snapped. "Don't you listen! Are you deaf? You can go now. Now!" 

At this, much to Scarlett's relief, the old woman turned around and headed towards the servant's tract of the house. 

After Mammy had disappeared from Scarlett's already blurred vision, she allowed herself to tremble with the delayed shock. Trying to calm down, she continued to try and block out the chaos of her mind.

_Four times four is sixteen. With sixteen, I met Rhett at Twelve Oaks. I won't think about that know. Five times five is twenty-five._ But her mind betrayed her and her thoughts returned to Rhett again. Nothing could distract her now from the pain which had slowly and thoroughly infused her whole body. 

He had gone to Belle after he and she…that wasn't possible, he couldn't be so cruel, nobody could be so cruel. And to do it so that she had to find out... Why could he not have done it clandestinely, like so many men did? Why had he to humiliate her like this, in front of the servants, in front of everyone? For she was sure everyone knew; everyone except her. How he must be laughing at her. But he had always laughed at her. After all, it was only another one of his crude jests at her expense.

"You're my pet, my dear."

A lap dog to cuddle and kick, to treat nicely and to forget the very next moment. That she was, his lap dog. No, she wasn't a lap dog. It was worse, much worse. Her face contorted in disgust. She was his….whore. A whore, no less. Another one of the women he paid for his amusement. And he had treated her like a whore, she suddenly realized with an icy shower that made her body rigid and cold. What she had thought to be passion was lust; pure, raw lust. Not passion, only animal instincts had fueled his actions that night. No wonder tenderness had only been a small part in it. He had much practice with rough and stormy nights like that and women like her...women who could be bought for money, and he had paid her like any other woman of his acquaintances, with the only difference that she had set the prize for her body much higher. Much, much higher, she thought with bitter self-irony. Marriage, he of course had to marry her. The joy and rapture in her heart was replaced by self-disgust. Always he had paid her, right from the start and she had tolerated it. Everything could be bought, he once had said and she hadn't surely set a counterexample. That had been the ongoing tune of their relationship. The carrot and the stick. He had given her money and she had taken it, taken his insults, his coldness and his wayward moods that went along with it How he must loathe her. That's why he had never treated her with respect. For she knew that she would never respect anyone that was so - desperate. How she detested herself, so much, that she wished to hit her head against the wall till it started to bleed. She stumbled along the dark floor, blindly seeking her way to her bedroom. There she laid down, rolling herself together into a fetal position, squeezing her eyes closed in a futile attempt to shut out her emotions. But they came and went, tormenting her mercilessly and she felt like a victim of a shipwreck, badly fighting to stay above the water. She would inevitably drown in the shipwreck that was her life. What was left to keep her afloat? Ashley's love of her? He had avoided her at the party, not being able to look her in the eyes. Their half-hearted affair which had driven Rhett into a wild, drunken frenzy had been at an end long ago anyway, she couldn't lie to herself about that any longer. And she wasn't a person one could love, not the person she had become at least. A woman of easy virtue, without honor, without love, without respect.

Oh yes, she had never slept with a man out of wedlock and how had she prided herself on that! She had even had the guts to look down on Belle, blissfully unaware of the fact that she shared her husband with the whorehouse madam the whole time. 

But Rhett had opened her eyes. He loved to do that to people, always forcing them to face their true image in the mirror. He never permitted anyone in his presence to act a lie, palm off a pretence or indulge in bombast. At last he had overcome her resilience and made her see what she was and what her life had turned into. The veil had been lifted from her eyes to reveal an emotional desert where the only person she could rely on was herself. Herself. The though make her shudder with revulsion. She did not want to be alone with herself for she didn't like the woman she had become. He had thoroughly succeeded in his efforts to pull her down. Her self-hatred rose to fever-pitch. She wished she could omit herself from the face of earth. If she only could disappear, vanish forever.

Her thoughts abruptly drifted to a piece of gossip she'd heard some time ago. Without volition she thought of Mr. Jefferson. He had been one of her best customers at the store. Tuesday and Friday had been his shopping days and he had always been friendly, paying his bills punctually. He came regularly like clockwork until one day he simply didn't appear. The weeks went by and he still didn't show. Scarlett eventually dismissed him from her thoughts, deciding with a smirk that he had probably just decided to start going to the new store in town. So it was with surprise that she learned from another one of her customers that Mr. Jefferson had killed himself. In a confidant tone he whispered to her,

"Hung himself on a tree in his backyard! His wife found him the next morning. Her hair turned white overnight! The doctor had to put her under heavy doses of laudanum. It broke her heart, they say. The funny thing is, everybody knew they hated each other. His wife always yelled at him like a xanthippe. What a cold, spiteful woman she was! Now she's mad with grief and sorrow. It had to take a life to finally evoke a feeling for her husband in her. Isn't that sad? And of course, nobody speaks to her, they all say it was her fault. If it had been the other way 'round, they would say it's his fault and he would be the outcast now! People are so predictable sometimes, don't you think?" 

The story had only elicited pity in her. She saw no parallels to her own life then. But her mind had been completely occupied with keeping her family alive. In times of such hardship, all her will power had been focused on survival. She had never questioned her relationship to Frank. Her marriage to him had been a mere necessity. When Frank had died her conscience had awakened for a short moment, but was quickly appeased again by the thought that she had to do it for the sake of her family and Tara. But Rhett, that was quite another thing altogether. Rhett hadn't been a necessity. She had married him because she coveted his money as much as he had coveted her body. They both had seemed so well matched, their greed only been surpassed by their selfishness. But she had lost the last traces of personal integrity during this rather strange marriage. Rhett had deprived her of dignity and pride, the only virtues she hadn't managed to destroy herself. He might not be at fault for her downfall, she had had her fair share in that, but he had accelerated the process. With cold vindictiveness she decided that he was going to pay for that. Pay very dearly, she would see to that. She felt weak and helpless, her inner strength no longer a fortification to the evils of the world.

But she possessed the power of the weak. What would hurt him the most? Oh, she knew clearly what would hurt him the most. If she could manage to expose his false halo as a mere deception, if she could sow the seed of mistrust against him and his now oh so proper reputation….if she only could manage just that.

And then she saw what had been clearly been laying in front of her eyes for a long time; and all the pieces of the puzzle fell into it's places. There was only one way she could win this war... She would have the last word, finally, infinitely. The control over her life would be hers again, the control he had taken from her a long time ago. No longer would she be a puppet on his string. Her attempts on extinguishing herself with alcohol had been met poorly and unsuccessfully. This time she would make it right. 

With this thought, she rose from the bed, her senses wide awake now. She went over to the dressing room. Agitatedly she searched through her hat boxes. Where was the one with the blue ribbon? Ah, there it was. With a sigh of relief she knelt on the floor, opening the box with trembling fingers. She looked inside and saw Charles' revolver which had laid there all the time, almost forgotten by it's new owner, waiting patiently…for her?

For a long time she just stared at it. Then she took it out, watching it like a lover would watch the object of his desire. She felt the smooth, cold steel, the weight of it's lethal power. She caressed it almost coquettishly. Flirting with death, wasn't that a very suitable way for her to die? She almost smiled at the thought. And to decide upon one's own dying day, what could be more powerful and seductive? She took the weapon and pointed it at her breast. Her heart was beating hard and fast. Something inside her rebelled, she was too young, there were so many things to do, so many things that she had wanted to do, but never did. She thought of her religion. After having committed suicide her body could not be buried in consecrated earth. She would burn in hell. But she already was in hell. She shortly thought of her children who had never mattered much to her. She had never been a good mother, so they would not miss her. Rhett would take care of them and if it only was because of his bad conscience. Her mind conjured up the vision of a grief-stricken Rhett, white-faced and sad, standing at her grave, Bonnie's little hand in his. Her power over him in death would be much more imminent than it had ever been in life. Her image would forever haunt him. That was the decisive factor. Pulling herself together she rose to her feet and positioned the revolver under her left breast. She quickly prayed the Hail Mary and begged for forgiveness. Summoning up all her will power she pulled the trigger. A loud click broke the stillness of the room.

It took her a while to realize that the revolver hadn't fired. A sense of utter foolishness swept through her. How ridiculous. So ridiculous. No dignity for her, not even at a moment like this... The gun hadn't been loaded of course. She had noticed the small carton on the bottom of the box when she had opened it, but what it meant had been lost on her at the time. The small carton contained the bullets. In a house with children one kept no loaded revolvers in hat boxes. Why hadn't she thought of that? What a fool she was, a bloody fool. She took the carton and went over to the bed, sitting down on the edge. She opened the chamber of the revolver and filled in the bullets. She pondered for a while. Her body felt numb with exhaustion. How she could go to this ordeal again she did not know. Tomorrow, she thought, tomorrow was another day. Tomorrow she could muster the strength to do what had to be done. 

Suddenly she felt very weak, all of what was left of her strength having been drained in that one painfully tense moment. She couldn't do it now, oh, not now. With that thought she lied down, outstretching her cramped limbs and fell into a merciful sleep at last.


	2. Part II of Fallen

For an immeasurable amount of time, she laid there in bed and stared up at the ornate canopy above her head. She had slept, but retained no benefits from the rest.

Never in her life had Scarlett O'Hara felt so alone. No one stood at her side. There was no place to hide, no person that would take and accept her with open arms. Not anymore. The war had taught her to fight her fights alone and to protect herself. Male support had proved to be fickle and unreliable, so she had to learnt to live without it. She had went through the hard school of life so thoroughly that she was not able to accept help or protection anymore, even if someone should freely offer it to her. When she had been desperate for help, every one had turned away from her. First it was Rhett who walked away from her when she had most needed him. And then Ashley. Ashley was perhaps the worst of them all. He had given her neither emotional nor practical help in the hard time after the war when she so very badly needed it. Everything she got from him was stolen by her, not freely given by him. She had set her cap on love alone and now she had nothing. Absolutely nothing. No lovers, no friends. Nothing for her. 

It didn't have to be this way, she supposed, she could have kept her damn mouth shut, could have left her fingers from beaux who weren't hers. She could have pretended to be someone whom she was not, but heaven forbid that! No, she was doomed forever to be locked in this hell that she had partly made for herself, away from the rest of the world, a deviant to the rules of society.

Scarlett closed her eyes tightly and made a valiant effort to try and push back the thoughts that nearly drowned her when she first awoke, her tired mind forcing itself round and round the deeply worn circle of futile thoughts about the mess she was in. She was sick in body and weary in mind and she was standing like a lost child in a nightmare country in which there was no familiar landmark to guide her. 

She climbed out of bed, and called for Mammy. Once, not long after the war had ravaged the world around her, and more directly Tara, she recalled thinking that she no longer had anything to fear. A woman who had seen the worst, as old Grandma Fontaine had called it, and had nothing left to fear; Not life nor Mother nor loss of love nor public opinion. Only hunger and her nightmare dream of hunger could make her afraid. She didn't even fear death anymore. That was simply a matter of time…

The wild thought of quickly dashing down the steps and into the parlor to retrieve a bottle of brandy crossed her mind, but she knew she couldn't; Rhett would be coming home soon; he never could stay away from her for very long…maybe in an hour or so…maybe not till morning…

And she waited…

And as she had once fled Atlanta before an invading army, so she was fleeing the chaos of her mind, pressing her worries into the back of her mind with her old defense against the world: "I won't think of it now. I can't stand it if I do. I'll think of tomorrow. Tomorrow's another day." It seemed as if she could only fall back into the her old way of life, the one in which everything was fine on the surface and stillness prevailed, she would somehow be able to mold her shattered thoughts into something she could live by as she counted down the time.

***

When she had finished her breakfast and was in her room putting on her bonnet, she heard swift feet on the stairs. As she sank to the bed in fear of the emotions that were suddenly welling back within her, emotions that she had put on standstill, Rhett entered the room. He was freshly barbered, shaved and massaged and he was sober, but his eyes were bloodshot and his face puffy from drink. He waved an airy hand at her and said: "Oh, hello."

She locked eyes with him, her own clouded and yet lifeless as she spoke with a hint of bitterness: "I wonder why you even bothered coming back here at all."

He leaned easily against the doorframe and watched her speculatively. "What's this my dear? I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. Perhaps you could be so kind as to elaborate for me?" his voice was poisonously sweet.

Damn him; damn him to hell! How dare he come in here and mock her, laugh in her face? Look down on her from his pedestal of respectability. Why was it that he could consort with that creature and still retain his halo, whereas she was essentially windowed out from the world from which she'd once belonged? She couldn't comprehend these Atlanta folk who went about starving with their heads held high. The war had taught her what people really were, but it didn't teach her anything more about how to live with them, be they Atlanta's disheveled finest, or the bejeweled Scalawag crowd. But most of all, she was shut out from Rhett, the one person whom she'd always been able to turn to, and the one who had taught her to turn away from the life in which she'd once belonged to. 

And why was that? Why was it that he could do such things, yet still carry on with a mistress and not be looked down upon? It made no sense, and simply served to make her seethe with resentment and hatred towards Rhett. Now it was his turn to be destroyed…

Sighing with disgust, her glance strayed from his and landed on the gun she'd left laying on her dresser the night before.

"I mean that there's no reason for you to even bother returning here, Rhett. Nobody seems to give a damn that you're living with the town's Madame, so why don't you finish moving your things there? I'm sure she'd make a charming mother to Bonnie." Scarlett smirked with cruelty at the outraged expression on Rhett's face. "Oh, but I forgot! She's not good enough to be your wife though, is she Rhett? And I'm not good enough to be your whore," she replied with poison. 

Rhett's mouth curved downward and he gave a short incredulous laugh. "Do I detect jealousy, my pet?"

Scarlett walked the short distance to the gun and picked it up slowly, allowing the morning sunlight to reflect upon the cold steel.

Rhett frowned with confusion, then smirked at her. "Surely you're not that angry, my dear! How do you know that I left you anything in my will? I may not have, you know, so killing me would do you no good."

"No, I'm not going to kill you, they'd probably martyr you, and that would defeat my purpose," she replied more to herself than to him. But then she suddenly lashed out at him as he chuckled at her remark: "How could you do this to me? Do you really hate me this much? Despise me with all of your being, so that you think in your mind that it makes it fine for you to go from me to her?" her face was ghostly pale underneath her startlingly bright green eyes, eyes that were filled with torment. "You disgust me, you-"

"Come now, darling! Not disgusting, surely!" "And don't play like you're the deceived wife, Scarlett. You must have known about Belle years ago."

She could no longer bear it; the fierce agony tearing at her breast, the potently sweet hatred welling up…Damn him…he would pay, and now, before she lost her courage again, before she lost this dizzily sweet adrenaline rush. She raised the pistol to her breast once more and cocked it. 

Rhett's face was suddenly blanched with fear as he spoke urgently, "Good God, Scarlett, what are you doing? Put the gun down," he quickly strode towards her with an outstretched hand but she backed away from him, knocking over a vase behind her, which crashed to the floor in thousands of splintering pieces. "Get away from me!" she screamed on the verge of hysteria, hot tears of rage pouring down her face. 

Outside in the hallway, Mammy and Dr. Meade heard the crash and Scarlett's plea. Dr. Meade had been sent for that morning by Mammy who feared for her mistresses health, in the hopes that the doctor could provide Scarlett with some sort of sedative to aid her in her sleepless nights.

But now they both rushed into the room, careless of the two within in. It was almost as if they had walked in on some sickly horrid nightmare that was playing in slow motion. They watched as Rhett grabbed Scarletts arm with lightning reflexes, saw as they struggled against one another, unaware that they were no longer alone, as they grunted and tugged against each other.

"Damn you! Let go of me! I'm going to show everyone that you're not some damned saint! I'll show them all!" she screamed as she jerked the gun towards her once more with all of her force. 

"Scarlett, no! Stop this! Scarlett!" Rhett panted heavily in fear and anger, anger at himself, and anger towards her for trying to pull such a stunt. But then with a thunderous boom it no longer became a ploy to enrage him, or a device for her revenge.

The back kick of the pistol made her reel, as the roar of the explosion filled her ears and the acrid smoke stung her nostrils. She crashed backwards to the floor, slipping on the broken glass, sprawling to the floor in pain. She weakly moved her hand to the gushing wound, and lifting her hand up, looked at it in horror as she noted the bright red blood that covered it and was slowly trickling out of her body. For a timeless moment she lay there and in the still hush of the horror filled room, every irrelevant sound and scent seemed magnified, the quick thudding of her heart, like a fierce drumbeat, and the terrified gasps that echoed in the room, and the sweet smell of the flowers that had been flung from the vase. Her gaze fell on Rhett and then on the two unknown observers, and suddenly she was vitally alive again, vitally glad with a cool tigerish joy. Rhett would pay for his sins this time. There was no running away from this…

"There!" she thought with in a hot rage of pleasure. "There! I've hurt him now!"

But she didn't have time to think much else. The room had suddenly become dim, and the shouting voices but whispers. 

***

And then, like a blinding ray of lightning, the knowledge of death and fear that suddenly made her try to scream a name but the scream was only a whisper, for her mind was already leaving her body and she could see herself from above, lying deathly pale on the floor, the essence of her life inevitably seeping in the thick oriental carpet that had been all her pride, once and in another life. Suddenly all the fear, all the fights and tears, disappointments, ailments and emotional entanglements of her life didn't matter anymore. With a strange emotional detachment she watched her husband's face as he leaned above her, white and wiped clean of all save hideous fear, his voice calling for Dr. Meade who still stood seemingly frozen in motion, an equally paralyzed Mammy at his side. So this was death. How easy it was and how ridiculous men were to be so much afraid of something….so peaceful. Her mind couldn't focus any longer on what was happening to her earthly being and it wasn't important anymore. There was warmth and light that awaited her at the end of the long, dark and cold tunnel that had been her life and she knew she had finally found the shelter she had in vain sought in her dreams. She heard whispered voices, strangely comforting and familiar to her ears that called her name and she light-heartedly turned in that direction. Her heart and mind were infused with an inexplicable love, a kind of love she had never felt before. But then the light and warmth that had come within reach vanished before her very eyes. She wanted to scream with frustration. Somebody said in a low hushed voice: _"Your time has not yet come. Go back." _

No, she wanted to say, no, I don't want to go back, but the words remained trapped in her throat. And then there was only darkness, a darkness so complete that she vanished within it.


	3. Part III

No, I still don't own GWTW, much to my dismay, but in case you haven't noticed, we used several of the lines in GWTW to make our fic more authentic and well, seem downright freaky in that they could have been twisted in the way we have, lol. Thank you for the comments, and thank you "untitled" for adding the story to your favs.

When she regained consciousness she felt only cheated. Pain throbbed through her whole body, tormenting her mercilessly . She felt terribly thirsty and tried to beg for water, but no word would leave her lips. "Water" she finally managed to say, but it was only a whisper. She feltsomeone's presencebeside her, somebody who held her head and tried to put some hot liquid in her mouth. Chicken soup. It was chicken soup. So she must be alive. Chicken soup served in heaven or hell would have been much too banal. 

"Scarlett, darling, you must eat something. If you don't want to do it for yourself, please do it for me. Please. You will, won't you?" Melly's voice. Tender and soothing as if speaking to a child. Melly who always was at her side when she needed her. Scarlett felt comforted in all her misery. Melly who obviously still was her friend in all this. But then Melly wasn't at her side any longer, and the utter loneliness returned.

"Melly" Scarlett fretfully cried like a child would cry for its mother. "Melly, Melanie", over and over she repeated her plea. Yet Melly didn't come. For Melanie was sitting on the edge of Rhett's bed and Rhett drunken and sobbing, was sprawled on the floor, crying, his head in her lap.

Every time she had come out of Scarlett's room she had seen him, sitting on his bed, his doors wide, watching the door across the hall. The room was untidy, littered with cigar butts and dishes and untouched food. The bed was tumbled and unmade and he sat on it, unshaven and suddenly gaunt, endlessly smoking. He never asked questions when he saw her. She always stood in the doorway for a minute, giving the news: "I'm sorry, she's worse," or "No, she hasn't asked for you yet. You see she's delirious" or "You mustn't give up hope, captain Butler. Let me fix you some hot coffee and something to eat. You'll make yourself ill."

Her heart ached with pity for him, although she was almost too tired and sleepy to feel anything. How could people say such mean things about him-say he was heartless and wicked and unfaithful to Scarlett, when she could see him getting thin before her eyes, see the torment in his face? Tired as she was, she always tried to be kinder than usual when she gave bulletins from the sick-room. He looked so like a damned soul waiting judgment-so like a child in a hostile world. But everyone was like a child to Melanie. But when, at last, she went joyfully to his door to tell him that Scarlett was better, she was unprepared for what she found. There was a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table by the bed and the room reeked with the odor. He looked up at her with bright glazed eyes and his jaw muscles trembled despite his efforts to set his teeth.

"She's dead?"

"Oh, no. She's much better."

He said: "Oh, my God," and put his head in his hands. She saw his wide shoulders shake as with a nervous chill and, as she watched him pityingly, her pity changed to horror when she saw that he was crying. Melanie had never seen a man crying and of all men, Rhett, so suave, so mocking, so eternally sure of himself.

It frightened her, the desperate chocking sounds he made. But when he raised his head and she caught one glimpse of his eyes, she stepped swiftly into the room, closed the door softly behind her and went to him. When she put a soft hand on his shoulder, his arms went suddenly around her skirts. Before she knew how it happened she was sitting on the bed and he was on the floor, his head in her lap and his arms and hands clutching her in a frantic clasp that hurt her.

She stroked the black head gently and said: "There! There!" soothingly. "there! She's going to get well."

At her words, his grip tightened and he began speaking rapidly, hoarsely, babbling as though to a grave which would never give up its secrets, babbling the truth for the first time in his life, baring himself mercilessly to Melanie who was, at first, utterly uncomprehending, utterly maternal. He talked brokenly, burrowing his head in her lap, tugging at the folds of her skirt. Sometimes his words were blurred, muffled, sometimes they came to clearly to her ears, harsh, bitter words of confession and abasement, speaking of things she had never heard a woman mention, secret things that brought the hot blood of modesty to her cheeks and made her grateful for his bowed head.

She patted his head as she did little Beau's and said: "Hush! Captain Butler! You must not tell me these things! You are not yourself. Hush!" But his voice went on in a wild torrent of outpouring and he held to her dress as though it were his hope of life. He accused himself of deeds she did not understand; he mumbled the name of Belle Watling and then he shook her with his violence as he cried: "I've killed Scarlett, I've killed her. You don't understand. We hadn't been sleeping together-"

"Hush, Captain Butler! It is not fit---"

"And I was drunk and insane and I wanted to hurt her-because she had hurt me. I wanted to-and I did-but she didn't want me. She's never wanted me. She never has and I tried-I tried so hard and-"

"Oh, please"

"And when I took her against her will I ran away before dusk, going to Belle's where I drank myself to oblivion. And when I returned home after three days what did I do? What did I say? I laughed right in her face and said it would do her no good to kill me because I might have left her nothing in my will. I never thought, I never dreamt that she would attempt something like that. Not Scarlett. She's so strong….I wouldn't...I can't allow myself to believe that she cares..." His voice broke off.

"Captain Butler, nobody could have known that! It took us all by surprise! We thought at first it must be a mistake, that it only could have been an accident…I'm sure there must be an explanation for all that. It can only be a misunderstanding between you. You will soon clear it up!" Melanie said, trying to convince herself as much a she tried to convince Rhett. He groaned and again buried his face in her lap. 

"No, by God, you don't understand! You can't understand! Do you know why I hurt her? I was mad, crazy with jealousy. She never cared for me and I thought I could make her care. But she never cared. She doesn't love me. She never has . She loves---" he broke of again, suddenly realizing to whom he was speaking. Looking up he muttered

"I'm a cad, but not that big a cad. And if I did tell you, you wouldn't believe me, would you?"

"No, I wouldn't believe you," said Melanie crooningly, beginning to stroke his hair again..

"She's going to get well. There, Captain Butler! Don't cry! She's going to get well again."

***

Scarlett sat at the open window and watched the birds in the garden. The smell of the flowers was overwhelming. There was an abundance of vegetation in her backyard and she never had noticed it before. She could sit there for hours, breathing the soft spring air, enjoying to be alive again. Though she had felt betrayed at first, she now accepted that undeserved gift to have survived. Dr. Meade had plainly told her that she had been snatched from the jaws of death, it was a veritable miracle. He had almost sounded disapproving. She had smiled and said: "Don't take it personally, Dr. Meade. You know it would take more than that to finish me!" 

But why had God let live her, when so many other far more worthy had died? There must be a purpose, a reason. She often pondered on this apparent injustice. Remembering Grandma Fontaine's words about the unnaturalness of women who had no fear she smiled. It was not true for it felt quite right for her to be fearless. Fear had suffocated her, limited her free will, being the background of most of her fatal mistakes. She had been driven by fear almost all her life, she just realized that now. First it had been the fear to lose Ashley, than the fear to lose Tara and finally the overwhelming fear of being poor again. The true magic of life had escaped her because of that fear. Freedom! That was the thought that sung in her heart so that even the future was so dim, it was iridescent like the mist over the river where the morning sun fell upon it. She felt a freedom of all spiritual ties, the freedom of a disembodied spirit; and with freedom , courage and a valiant unconcern she looked out for whatever was to come. Briefly her thoughts turned to Rhett.

He had treated her in such a cold, impersonal manner after her ailment that she sometimes thought she had only dreamt that wonderful night they had spent together. And perhaps it was better that way. It was much more easy to put an emotional distance to a man who was so frightingly, chillingly polite, a stranger who just happened to be her husband. And emotional distance was what she needed now.

She would go away for a while. Except for her short honeymoon in New Orleans she never had been anywhere farer than Saratoga. Always accompanied by her parents or her husband she had never been on her own. It would be an adventure to be on her own, to travel alone to a far away place. The more she thought about it the better she liked the idea. Far, far away from Atlanta and its gossip and far away from Rhett and his insufferable remoteness. 

But first she had to put something right, something that had laid on her soul for a very long time.

***

"Darling, I don't want an explanation from you and I won't listen to one," said Melanie firmly, as she gently laid a small hand across Scarlett's tortured lips and stilled her words.

"But I want to speak, Melanie. You don't know me, you only think you do!" 

"I don't want to hear a word out of you! Not knowing you! Of course I know you, Scarlett O'Hara!"

"Melanie, I truly want to be your friend, but you have to know me for that. I'm fed up with pretending to be someone that I am not. We never spoke about that, but I never wanted children. I didn't want Wade Hamilton and I was a very poor mother for him. I stole my sister's fiancée to save Tara and myself**,** and I made Frank utterly miserable. I gave him a daughter, but if I had a say in that matter Ella would not exist. And then I married Captain Butler just for the money and I let him know I only took him because of his money. He treated me with cold distance, but I didn't care as long as he paid my bills…and he took his revenge by not letting me forget for one moment what a mercenary, despicable girl I had become. Please don't look so shocked! Things like that happen. Many women marry for money or a title alone, though that's no excuse for my choice. I for once want to call the things by their proper name from now on. After all I'ddone I thoroughly deserved such a husband, he was my well deserved comeuppance."

"But that's not true. Captain Butler loves you so! When you were ill he was sick with worry, if you only had seen him. He was so----"

"Melly, Rhett doesn't love me. He hasa bad conscience, that's all! And I dare say his conscience doesn't bother him any more for he said not once that he's sorry. Was he at my side when I was ill? _You_ were at my side, but not him. He simply doesn't care enough for me!"

"No, he told me that he loves you and that he tried to make you care! He told me that repeatedly!"

Scarlett was silent for a moment**, **toostunned to speak. After a while she said:

"Then he has indeed a very strange and sick way of showing his feelings for me. I doubt very much that he has spoken to truth to you. He wants you to think well of him. He so much admires you, he told you only what you wanted to hear."

"Oh, no, if you only would listen! He loves you so very much!"

Scarlett calmly replied: "This is not love. This is obsession and I don't want that kind of devotion, it hurts too much. And how can he love me when he does not respect me? He never respected me! And I cannot even blame him for I don't deserve respect! I wish you could stop admiring and idolizing me, I'm not worth it. Can't you see I'm not worth it?"

Melanie looked at her with shock and dismay.

"You might have made mistakes and you are not a saint, but how can you say that you are unworthy? You saved my life more than once! Is that why you…..tried to kill yourself? Because you felt unworthy?"

It was awful to refer to that act which she had tried in vain to forget. It had terrified her out of her wits to imagine her sister-in-law to commit such a deadly sin. Not Scarlett, who always was so self-reliant and resourceful.

"Yes, partly because of that. Partly because I wanted to hurt Rhett and I knew it was the only way I could reach him. Partly because I was fed up with the futileness and shallowness of my life. There are so many reasons and I am just starting to figure them all out. Melanie, can you keep a secret for me? Can I rely on you to keep that secret, come what may?"

"Of course you can! You can trust me with your life!"

"Yes," Scarlett whispered with a warm smile "I know that! You're the only person in the world I do entirely trust! The secret you shall keep for me is this: I'm going away for a very long time. I want you to watch after my children in the meantime. I'm sure Rhett will take care of them very well, but I want you to keep an eye on them nonetheless. I will give you my address as soon as I know it and I expect you to keep my location a secret! I will write to you- and I hope you'll write back to me."

"Of course I'll do! But where are you going?"

"I don't know yet."

"What will you tell your husband?"

"Nothing, I suppose. He never told me when he went away, so why shall I bother now to give him an explanation for my absence? Anyway he'll be happy to be rid of me and to have Bonnie entirely for himself. I have only been an unpleasant intruder to their little world for quite a long time. But I won't cry over spilled milk now!" 

"I wish you would stay and talk to Captain Butler!"

Scarlett smiled again and said:

"What for? Whenever we started to talk it ended in a horrid quarrel and I always lost the fight in the end. I would lose again, I'm no match for him when it comes to a battle of the wits. Besides I'm through with war, I've had enough of that for a lifetime!" 


	4. Part IV

Rhett stared out the window of his office down towards the lawn that lay below unseeingly, his forehead pressed lightly against the cool glass. The world had suddenly become a mad place once more, only the chaos was no longer raging outside in an impersonal world, but instead within his own home.

"Scarlett," he whispered quietly. What in God's name had happened to her? Not once did it ever cross his mind that she'd do, or try such a thing. She was a fighter, had always been a fighter, much to his dismay at times. How he'd longed to take her burdens away from her so that she could play- but she didn't want to play, or refused to anyway.

The thought that the reason for ending her war was because of his actions was nearly incomprehensible to him- it couldn't be true. Scarlett didn't give a damn, she was just jealous, mad with utterly damning selfishness and a desire to punish him. But her pain filled words and face suddenly reappeared to him in all their clarity:

_"How could you do this to me? Do you really hate me this much? Despise me with all of your being, so that you think in your mind that it makes it fine for you to go from me to her?"_

All that followed those wounded remarks he quickly pushed to the back of his mind, taking a swift drink from the small side bar in the room. It didn't even burn when it went down anymore. He couldn't do this though, drink himself into oblivion. He needed answers.

He opened the door to his office to see one of the maids passing by, a bundle of linens in her arms. "Jane, send Mammy to my office. I need to discuss something with her." He closed the door behind him, dismissing her as he returned to his large desk and sat down. Rhett ran his fingers through his thick black hair and waited on the one person who could perhaps answer some of the questions that lingered in his mind. When he heard the short rap on the door he quickly masked his feelings and answered.

"Come in, Mammy." 

The old black woman stepped into Rhett's dimly lit office and shut the door behind her.

"You asked for me, Mist' Rhett."

"Have a seat, Mammy. I want to talk to you about something…"

"Nah, sir. I think it'd be best if I just stand."

Rhett swallowed hard and looked away. So Mammy had turned against him. "Why did she do it? Why? It's not as if she gave a damn, you know she didn't-" he began in a strained voice despite his efforts to appear unperturbed.

"I don't know nothin' of the kind sir." She shifted her weight slightly and looked on him with indignation.

"Oh my God." Rhett whispered as he placed his pounding head into his palms. Suddenly he looked up at her accusingly. "Then why in hell didn't someone come for me? If I'd only known-"

Mammy's anger broke down as she stared at his pale face and bloodshot eyes. With a trembling lip she spoke. "It was partly my fault Mist' Rhett. I shouldn't have told her where you was." She quickly continued on seeing him look up at her wide-eyed with shock and disbelief. "But she was so scared for you…an I…I thought she knew you was with Miz Watling. If I knew she was gonna react like she did, I swear to Gawd I never would've told her. I…"

"Stop!" Rhett said loudly, bringing his fist down on the desk for emphasis. He got up abruptly and stood in front of the office window his eyes shut tightly, as though he could somehow shut out the intense pain her words had brought. When finally he spoke, his words were so soft that Mammy began to wonder whether he was talking to her. "It can't be true, it can't be…" his jumbled mind kept saying.

"No…it can't possibly be true. Scarlett doesn't love me- even you know that Mammy. She was just trying to hurt me, to repay me for-"

"Ain't nobody that heartless," Mammy interjected "Not even Miss Scarlett. But what with the way you treat each other it doesn't surprise me none. Cutting each other up with words sharp as knives! Both of you just as in love with the other but at the same time you're like a couple of mules- stubborn as can be and act like you ain't gotta lick of sense."

Rhett grunted and then was quiet for a moment while in thought, allowing all of her simple words to sink in. He couldn't believe that Scarlett actually cared- according to what Mammy said. Did she? Is that what pushed her over the edge? Could she have hoped, had prayed that night that he loved her, just as he had hoped that she had loved him?

"Do you really believe that, Mammy?"

"Yessir, I sure do."

"Then, since I'm inclined to listen to your advice, what do you suggest I do now?"

"T'ain't nothing you can do, Mist' Rhett, except wait. She'll come around. My lamb ain't ever been down for long, and this accident surely won't keep her down for long."

Rhett gave her a hard look. "You and I both know that it wasn't an accident, there's no need to put a polite face to the matter. The only accident involved was my jerking her arm so that the bullet went through her shoulder and not her heart. She meant to kill herself-" he cleared his throat suddenly, as he saw the old black womans eyes begin to well up with tears.

"I'm sorry, Mammy. I'm a cad. I shouldn't have said that to you. Please just tell me when Scarlett gets home…I need to talk to her."

Mammy dried her eyes on her apron, speaking in muffled sobs, "She come home about an hour ago Mist' Rhett, and went up to her room, saying she didn't want to be disturbed."

Rhett smirked wryly. "Well, she's about to be disturbed. She and I have a good deal of talking to do. I do want her happiness, you know that don't you, Mammy?"

"I'd best be going now, Miss Bonnie will be wanting her dinner soon, sir."

Rhett nodded his head gravely as his wife's servant left the room. Now for the more fearful task- speaking to his wife, to Scarlett herself.

***

The door was standing ajar as he approached, knocking lightly on the doorframe, so as to not startle her.

"Just set the tray down over there, Pansy, I'll see to it as soon as I finish packing."

Rhett cleared his throat, and Scarlett froze, shocked out of her wits. She'd been expecting Pansy, not Rhett. What in God's name did he want anyway? Why did he have to pick now, when she was escaping to try and speak with her? All of these thoughts were clearly displayed on her face as she turned to face him, holding a handful of stockings.

"Going somewhere, my pet?" Rhett asked with a somewhat amused smirk at the shocked expression on her face.

She swallowed dryly. "Yes, I'm leaving…" Why couldn't she finish that sentence? Why couldn't she say "forever?"

Rhett walked into the room and stood by an ornate table running his fingers over the glossy surface. "Will you be at Tara long, do you think?"

Their eyes met briefly. "I'm not going to Tara." She looked away and sighed heavily. God almighty, why did he have to show up and ruin all of her plans for escape? She bit her lip lightly and closed her eyes. "I'm going away…and I'll leave you the name of a lawyer in case you need to contact me."

"Is this your way of telling me that you're divorcing me? Is that what this is?" Rhett suddenly was at her side. "You're not going anywhere! I won't let you- Scarlett listen to me-" he grabbed her by her upper arms forcing her to look up at him.

Scarletts green eyes flashed with anger. "You let go of me! You can't tell me what to do! Who the hell do you think you are? Listen to you? You're a little too damned late, aren't you?"

Rhetts eyes clearly showed his pain and confusion, and he spoke in a rush of breath, "Dammit, Scarlett, Don't go now! If I had only known…but I didn't know… didn't believe you…cared… " he stopped speaking as she pushed him away with all of her force.

Her eyes were bright with pain. "No," she spoke as she tried unsuccessfully to wipe at the sudden tears that had leapt to her yes. "No, you don't know. It wasn't about you, Rhett. At least not completely." She turned from him and wiped her face clean of the tear stains, and with all of her will summoned her earlier strength. This had to end, it had to end now, without fear, without anger- emotionless and distantly. He deserved that at least she supposed- an explanation. She swallowed dryly before speaking,

"I've lived my life, never caring, yet always fearing that I would never live up to other peoples expectations. I shut out those who tried to reach me, shut out those who'd always been there for me." Scarlett paused for a moment as she searched for words to express what lingered on her heart.

"And then I met you- you who became both my confessor, and my tempter. You told me once, that one could live without a reputation, could be free without a reputation- if they had enough courage. So like a good student I followed your teachings."

"I wasn't aware I had that much of a stronghold over you, my dear. Surely you must be exaggerating." Rhett wished she'd turn around so he could see her face.

"But you did." She turned to him and looked straight into his unreadable eyes. "I've always wanted to be first in everyone's hearts- and when I found out that you went from me- after what you'd said- to her, every thing I'd done wrong, be it my own devices or those in which you helped lead me into, came crashing down on me. All of my self-loathing that I've managed to keep down, except for at night. That's when my nightmares would begin- and that's when I started drinking, because I hated- no, it didn't start out that way. Because I couldn't bear the pain, the hunger. And I hated living in fear- always fear! Fear that I'd lose Tara, fear that there'd be no food, fear of the damn Yankees. I hated that feeling- it made me weak, and I couldn't afford to be weak, and I shan't be anymore, because I haven't anything left to fear."

"Nothing to fear. Certainlyyou have something left to fear, just as you have something left to love." He questioned her softly.

"I wouldn't know about love. You see, I've never felt it, so I've been told." She walked away from him and shut her valise.

"Maybe that's because you've been so hell-bent on chasing after a school-girl infatuation that you haven't given yourself any room to feel actual love." Rhett replied bitingly. 

"And maybe I don't want your version of 'love.' We need to get away from one another Rhett. Perhaps then we can begin to see what the other sees." There was a knock on her door just then, announcing that her carriage was ready. She picked up her slim suitcase, (the others were already waiting on the carriage) and walked towards the open doorway.

Rhett couldn't believe what was happening. This was all like a sick nightmare, all of it was. And now- she was leaving. "What about Bonnie? Tell me where you're going, Scarlett. To your Aunts'? To visit friends, where?" "What about your nightmares, Scarlett? Who will be there to comfort you?" Rhett spoke madly. This couldn't be happening- this wasn't supposed to end this way; he was supposed to be able to hold her and make things alright for her again, she wasn't supposed to be running from him.

Scarlett turned one last time and looked at him from the doorway of her room. "The nightmare has ended Rhett; and this is the morning." "Goodbye."


	5. Part V

Rhett could scarcely believe it. The impossible nightmare had come true: Scarlett had left him. She was gone for two weeks now and he still couldn't believe it. On the surface life went on as usual. For a while he tried to pretend that she had gone to Tara like she had done so many times before. He had never accompanied her when she went on her lengthy trips home and she had never asked him to. Without a backward glance she had stepped into the carriage and that was the last thing he had seen from her. He had tried to drink himself to oblivion, but to no avail. Her face when she spoke those infinitely final words kept haunting him. The worst of it was that he knew it was poetic justice, that he had thoroughly deserved her deserting him. The next three days had gone in a drunken haze. Not even Bonnie had been able to cheer him up. The servants that were long since afraid of him, avoided him for fear of a drunken assault. After the fourth day of her departure he had went to the bank where Scarlett kept her business accounts. He had never interfered with her business affairs or tried to control her finances as so many other men did with their wives. Despite of his vicious threats on their honeymoon to ride her with a slack rein and to tightly control her expenditures no concrete actions had followed his pompous words. How he had liked to play the pompous ass when he was with her. Truth to be told if Scarlett had wanted to give Ashley money for a new pair of pants he wouldn't have noticed it. Had she ever noticed that his words had only been show? He doubted it. 

Now he cursed his lax attitude. He should have controlled her funds. Other women hadn't the financial resources to run away and vanish without a trace. It came as no surprise to him to learn that she had taken all the money that had been quickly convertible into cash. And that had been a lot. Liquidity was the source of her business. She could be away for years with that amount of money in her hands. Damn his lassitude, damn her. To top it all he had run into Mrs. Merriwether the very same day. It was one thing to cope with the fact that one's wife had run away with a small fortune, quite another was to face the most vicious member of the Atlanta triumvirate. She greeted him tightly lipped, disapproval written all over her face. 

"Captain Butler, I must have a word with you!"

"I'm entirely at your service, Mrs. Merriwether."

How he despised the old pea hen. Why had he to run into her just now?

"You must keep the gossip down for the sake of your little daughter. The town is humming with hearsay. I know nobody is courageous enough to tell you what I will tell you and I must tell you…" Her double chin had quivered with righteous indignation.

The rest was more or less lost to him. The essence had been that everybody knew Scarlett had tried to kill herself and had now run away from him. People began to talk about his past actions and speculated if his change from Saul to Paul hadn't been a mere affectation. If a woman like Scarlett left a man as rich as Midas then there must be something entirely wrong with him. Some even spread the evil tale that he had tried to kill Scarlett in a fit of mad jealousy and that she had ran away in a desperate attempt to save herself. 

It seemed that his carefully built up and dearly bought reputation was shred to pieces by Atlanta's most vicious scandal mongers. So his wife had won after all.

_"I'm going to show everyone that you're not some damned saint! I'll show them all!"_

Oh, yes she had shown them very effectively. With a grim smile he applauded her secretly. What a woman. Always a joker right up in her sleeve. He had underestimated her. He would never do so again. He never made the same mistake twice. If he ever got her back, he would-well, exactly what would he do? He had no idea. Everything in his marriage had been based on the secure knowledge that he knew her through and through. He had prided himself to have always been one step ahead of her. Until now. He simply was not used to not knowing her. 

"Perhaps it's time you end your sad little masquerade and start to act like a man," a little voice inside his head whispered to him. It was not the first time he heard that voice. He usually ignored it. But not this time. With a sudden self-insight he knew that if he had stayed with Scarlett the night after Ashley's party none of the later tragedies would have occurred. Scarlett would be still here, at his side. He had thrown one magic chance away. What a miserable, little gambler he had become. To lose with all the trump cards in his hands. 

That's when he had started to pretend Scarlett was at Tara. But those little self-deceptions didn't last long with him. He was no Ashley who dreamt away his life. He was a man of action. With that resolution he started with his old routine. Going to the bank at morning , playing with the children in the afternoon, going to Belle's "Girl For A Season" in the evening for a night cap and more. And more. That was another disaster. He tried to forget Scarlett in the usual way, taking one of the prettiest girls up to the room that was especially reserved for him. But, alas, his body refused to follow his wishes for the first time in his life. After several futile and clumsy attempts to fulfill his manly duties he said to his beautiful companion with barely concealed embarrassment: "This has never happened to me before!" The girl, a tall, cool and voluptuous blonde with curvaceous hips and a saucy smile had only looked at him with utter boredom and scarcely hidden disbelief. She must have had heard this pathetic excuse at least a thousand times from the mouth of various customers. The next evening he chose a dainty and petite black-haired woman with almond shaped grayish-green eyes and a waist so small he could easily span it with his hands. Belle had hired the young Creole girl years ago to please him, knowing his preferences. Yet he had never touched Francine-until tonight. He tried to find satisfaction with her, but again failed miserably. Despite the humiliating efforts to pretend Francine was Scarlett his rebellious body refused to assist him. He had never envied a woman before, but this evening he did.

In the nights that followed her departure he dreamt of her as she had been in his arms after Ashley's party, lush, sensual and entirely submissive. The latter had obviously been a mere fabrication of his wishful mind. In the daytime he had the odd feeling that she would come around the corner any moment, a distracted smile on her face and a distant look in her eyes as she had done so many times in real life. How could he go on, knowing he had driven her away forever. It was obvious now that not even Ashley meant anything to her anymore or otherwise she would have never left Atlanta. This thought should console him, for he had wished so very much she would forget her old love one day. He hadn't known that this would be the very same day of his comeuppance. If he could make a deal with God to get her back he would not even mind her infatuation with Ashley. No, this wasn't true. But anyway he would gladly take her back. 

_"And maybe I don't want your version of 'love.' We need to get away from one another Rhett. Perhaps then we can begin to see what the other sees." _

Those words of hers kept reeling in his mind. What exactly had she meant by that? He had given her everything a man could possible give a woman. He had given her everything he could think of. Undeniably he did- 

"Not yourself, and not your love! You always played safe games with her, never risked anything. You are a coward, Rhett Butler and a very poor gamester at that. If you want to win a fortune you have to play at high stakes."

That hideous voice in his mind didn't stop tormenting him. Damn his conscience. Why did it have to bother him now, when it was too late. Too late …was it really too late? There must be a way to win her heart now that it was finally set free. He must make amendments, but how? It was just not in him, to humble himself in front of a woman or a man if it came to that. He had never said that he was sorry since his childhood, to no one. As a child his father had severely punished him when he refused to treat adults with the dutiful respect that was required from him. He had to saysorry back then, and when he hadn't been able to take any more of his father's cruel blows with the cane, he had complied and said the hated words at last, but without inner conviction.

One particular incident came to his mind , something he thought he had forgotten because it happened more than thirty years ago, when he had been a ten year old boy. His Latin teacher, an elderly, always sourly looking German immigrant had accused him of having destroyed his grandfather's pocket watch. It was true that he had played several boyish pranks at the expense of the unlucky man and his father had known that, but he had never deliberately destroyed anything so precious before. His father had not believed him and hit him so badly, that he had been unable to hold a pen for several weeks. He had given up fighting the unavoidable in the end and apologized officially to Mr. Sauertopf for something he hadn't committed**; **Rhetthad sworn to himself that when he was grown-up he would never ever say sorry again. And he hadn't. After several days Mr. Sauertopf came and asked him for forgiveness for the clockmaker had told him that it had been a mere mechanical abrasion. No outward violence had been involved. Yet his father had never come to say that he was sorry. Rhett patiently waited and when nothing had happened, he demanded compensation for the injustice that had been done to him. But the old man only said "You'll have deserved it for something else. You're wicked by nature."

Wicked by nature. Was the verdict of the reserved, loveless, cold stranger that happened to be his father true? A cruel thought entered his mind. Wasn't he exactly like Abraham, reserved, loveless and cold? He had tried to be so different from this father as was humanly possible just to detect that he perhaps wasn't that different altogether. What a blow. No, he wasn't like his father, he was so much different to Bonnie, so indulgent and caring…

"But not with Scarlett. You always hold the whip over her head. Better you than her, that was your motto. Not so very different from the stiff, old Abraham: He wounded with the cane, you wound with words. And you know words can hurt infinitely more." That voice again, nagging at him, pestering him. He had to drink again. Now. All those little games he had played with Scarlett came to his mind. Even before she had thrown him out of their bedroom, he hadn't been exactly a model husband. Always a little devil inside him had driven him to spoil her fun. Oh, he loved the sparks of her fiery Irish temper, though that was a pathetic excuse for his maltreatment. If he hadn't been such a dumb clod he could have shown her the sparks between the bed sheets. But he had utterly failed in that. To be honest he had not even tried to. Deep down he knew he'd been too insecure when making love to Scarlett. He had never given a damn for his dignity when having sex with a woman, but he cared very much about his dignity with Scarlett. Keeping up appearances instead of indulging into uninhibited pleasures. Uninhibited pleasures a gentleman had to reserve for the whores. So very Abraham-like, an apple didn'tfall far from the tree. 

Suddenly he thought of his advice to the new sign for Frank's shop "Caveat Emporium." How very witty he had felt then. If it had been not for Ashley, Scarlett would have actually hanged that sign in front of her precious store. There had been absolutely no reason for this boyish joke except that he had to be nasty to Scarlett in an almost compulsive manner. If Ashley hadn't been there Scarlett would have made herself the laughingstock of town. Was that the way to distract her from her youthful infatuation with the flawless Mr. Wilkes? Just the opposite, he had made himself the perfect villain of the piece and assured Ashley once more in his position of the knight in shining armor. What a fool he had been, a bloody fool.


	6. Part VI

Melanie sighed. If only Scarlett hadn't made her a confidante in her marital misery and her escape- though she always had wanted to be closer to her sister-in-law who was very secretive about her private affairs. Every time she met Captain Butler and saw the stricken look on his face, the doomed look of a prisoner sentenced to death she had to summon all her will power to not blurt out everything she knew. Ah, the poor, poor man. Never had she expected to see him like that, the once so proud and aloof expression of his face thoroughly extinguished by hurt and despair at last.

"Our pagan god has finally become mortal", Maybelle Merriwether-Picard had smirked with an evil glint in her eyes when they had met last Thursday in their literary circle. Maybelle showed a rather disturbing tendency to be fast since lately. She had founded an unspoken union with the dashing bachelor Mr. Stanton-Lacy and demanded that Byron's "Don Juan" should be read next. Melanie nearly fainted at the very idea. It must be the damaging influence of her Creole husband whom Melanie had never entirely trusted. His sense of humor was clearly not that of a gentleman. And the way Maybelle eyed Captain Butler on the street, could only be called predatory. It was positively scandalous! Melanie sighed again. But the wickedness of the Picard couple was a minor sorrow, compared to her others. Sometimes she had the feeling her whole world was falling apart. So many things had changed and apparently a lot of people liked it. Maybelle for example very much enjoyed the more lax rules of the after- war society they now lived in. And of course, Scarlett didn't seem to mind the upheaval of their world very much either. Sometimes Melanie did not know whether they were right or not. But no, of course, they were not right. How could they be? Everything she believed in would be questionable then. Nothing could induce her to think that the Cause had been a wrong one. Even if Ashley said so. But Ashley and the Cause wasn't her problem either. Her problem was 6 feet and 2 inches tall and had shoulders like a sailor: Captain Butler. When she had first met him after his shameful confession which she blissfully only understood half she was terribly embarrassed. She feared he would mention his behavior and she had no idea how to react to that. But he, still the very epitome of a Southern gentleman in the beginning of their conversation had politely refrained from mentioning the subject to her. But he had inquired quite openly about Scarlett's whereabouts. 

"Mrs. Wilkes, has she told you where she's going? I went to her lawyer, but he refused to give me her address, telling me that all information would have to go through him. Of course I could put him into court and force him to give it to me. After all, she's my wife. Yet I think those desperate measures are not necessary for I'm quite sure you know where she is. I know my Scarlett. She could not sleep well without knowing what is going on here. She likes to have control over everyone and everything…and I can't think of more trustworthy person than you, Mrs. Wilkes. And some little bird has told me that you have seen her shortly before she went away. She wouldn't have made that visit if she hadn't planned to make you her confidante. She's so predictable, isn't she? Unfortunately not as much as I like her to be. I hope you won't make me beg for it because I'm not at all in a begging mood today. "

His tone had been light-hearted and jesting, but the stark lines in his face and the dark circles under his eyes had contradicted strongly with his cheerful attitude. 

"Captain Butler, please don't beg. It would be to no avail. I have given your wife my word of honor and I never break my word. I wish I could say more, but my promise binds me stronger than iron ties. I so much should like to help you!" 

"Ah, how poetic, my dear Mrs. Wilkes, this must be the influence of your priceless husband. Oh, the Wilkes and their dreadfully misplaced sense of honor which is rather a curse than a blessing!"

His tone had changed and was now depreciating and cynic, his eyes being blank and lifeless as if to hide the inner turmoil behind them. Whatever he said she knew that this was not a jesting matter for him. Usually he treated her with the utmost respect. He in fact almost stood in awe before her. His change of manner indicated how seriously affected he must be. She got an idea how Scarlett must have felt during their luckless marriage. Was that the way he had treated her? Sympathy for her sister-in-law rose in her chest. Scarlett could never have looked through such disguise. She was so bright but not in the matters of the heart, for she always took things so literally. 

What a mess she had gotten herself into. If she only hadn't given that promise. Never would she forget the almost accusatory look in Captain's Butler's eyes when he finally bid her good-bye. 

***

The conversation with Mrs. Wilkes had been totally useless. Oh, not totally useless for it had confirmed his suspicion that Scarlett was in contact with Melanie. No, Rhett wasn't at his wit's end. He would get her address without making himself and the affairs of his family a public spectacle. He simply would, somehow. Always he got what he wanted. Oh, well not always. But he would eventually. 

Yet he couldn't quite forgive Melanie's refusal to give him Scarlett's address. Without doubt she had known that he only wanted the best for his wife. Scarlett had absolutely no right to hide from him. And Melanie, the most subdued and dutiful of all Southern wives was part in this conspiracy behind his back! He knew he was unfair right now, but he couldn't help it. He was living in hell and he didn't know how to open the door of his furnace. In the next days he tried to ignore Mrs. Wilkes when he retrieved the children from their playtime, and he felt very bad when he saw tears in her eyes. 

***

"Jessie, dear girl, come to me! How is your reading lesson progressing?" Jessie was one of Melanie's many charity projects. She had found the black girl half starving on the streets and took her in. 

"Yes, ma'am. I can read really complicated things now like the bible!"

"Very well, then you could surely read this to me, I have troubles reading since lately. My eye sight is getting worse each day."

"But ma'am yesterday I saw you reading "The Intelligencer" and the letters of that newspaper are incredibly small!

"Surely not incredibly small, Jessie, if you only didn't exaggerate so much. And I assure my eye-sight is getting bad. I only read the headlines! So read this to me!"

She handed Jessie an envelope with a neat feminine handwriting on it. 

"Scarlett Butler, Little Rock, The Arcadian Hotel, Arkansas."

Jessie frowned. So Mrs. Butler was in Arkansas. How Prissy would love to hear that! The girl who had become a close friend for Jessie loved gossip and liked to revel in her own non-existing importance. Quite foolish that was. But she would have to pay for that information, Jessie would see to that. The false pearls Captain Butler had given her on Christmas where much to her liking. And if Prissy was clever she would sell that information to Captain Butler to an even higher price. But Prissy wasn't clever. Why shouldn't Jessie sell that information herself? And Mrs. Wilkes knew exactly that she was going to do that. A smile spread over the girl's handsome features. The white folk was queer sometimes. If Miss Melanie wanted Captain Butler to know his wife's whereabouts why did she not tell him herself? But Jessie had given up expecting an answer from God to the white folks strange and enigmatic ways. One had to accept them as they were. 

"Shall I read something else to you Miss Melly?"

"No, dear, this will do. I needed the address to write a letter to my sister-in-law. Jessie, you must keep this address a secret, do we understand each other? "

Oh, yes, they understood each other. Jessie swallowed the impolite question, how Miss Melly was going to do that, eyesight being so miserable since lately. Miss Melly was a nice woman, but like all white people believed the Negroes to be nitwits who couldn't put two and two together. 


	7. Part VII

"I would have preferred that you came to the servants entrance, Jessie." 

Jessie eyed Captain Butler coolly. "I'm not your servant, Sir!"

"You want to offer me an important service, don't you? At least that's what you wrote in that dreadfully misspelled letter you sent to me!"

She was not a slave and never had been one, damn him. She silently added an additional sum for that insult. If he continued like that, he would have to pay a fortune for the address of his runaway wife.

"I have just learnt how to read and write, I did as best as I could. But since you got my meaning it can't have been that bad. I'm not for beating around the bush so I tell you what I have to offer: I know where your wife is right now. But this information will cost you something, I want to have thirty dollars for it."

She had blurted out the last words rather hastily. Despite her usual cheekiness she felt awkward at demanding a bribe for what she had in store for the arrogant and rather frightening Captain Butler. 

"You are a greedy little girl. I don't appreciate buying something you have obviously stolen from your benefactor Mrs. Wilkes, one of the nicest women in town. You should be ashamed, paying back her kindness in such manner."

For a moment Jessie felt a wave of fury that was so strong it left her breathless for a moment. She could tell him a tale or two about white folks kindness. Though Miss Melly was much better than most of them, she was far from being a saint. Just like everybody else she let Jessie work for her living and didn't give anything for free, least of all food. She might feed starving confederates at her door, but surely no darkies. Sometimes Jessie shook her head at Miss Melly's foolishness. A white man had only to put on a Southern accent and tell pathetic tales of how brave he had fought the Yankees and Miss Melly would open her heart and purse to him. Jessie strongly suspected a lot of them to be mere frauds. Unfortunately she was neither white nor a Confederate soldier so she had to work for the Wilkes and she worked at least 14 hours a day till she was weary to the bone. Miss Melly was as weak as a straw so Jessie had to do all the work with little or no help at all. But this was not the time to pity herself. 

"I don't care what you think about me. I want the money. No money, no address."

"If I don't submit to your exorbitant demand what will you do? I could go to Mrs. Wilkes and tell her what you are up to!" Rhett replied scathingly. He didn't like the girl, he didn't like her at all. Just another one of that uppity Negroes. The last one he met wasn't uppity anymore, he had seen to that.

"I'm quite sure you will not go to Mrs. Wilkes. She might be grateful and throw me out but you still won't know where your wife is. You are an intelligent man. I want the money, you want the address."

She managed to keep a cool face and an even cooler voice. Deception had always been a necessity for her. Yet she couldn't suppress a small shiver of panic that ran down her spine and right into her stomach. Perhaps it hadn't been so wise to deal with Captain Butler. If she had only kept her big mouth shut. One of these days, as her former employer Mr. Olson had predicted, it would be the hooded men who would silence her forever. 

Captain Butler's reaction couldn't have surprised her more. A small winsome smile lit his dark and somber face up and though it didn't reach his eyes it was enough for Jessie to keep her panic in check.

"You're a little gambler, aren't you? And as a true gambler you should always watch out that nobody shoots you from behind. Just a fair warning from one gamester to the other. But this time it looks like you win. I assume you want it in cash?"

There was actually a twinkle in his eyes. She took a deep breath and retorted with great dignity: "Cash would be nice."

He laughed out loud, in fact he was almost bellowing. Jessie startled. Suddenly his merry mood disappeared as quickly as it had came. 

"This must remain among us, do we understand each other? If I hear you spreading a word of what has been said between these walls you are fodder for our brave men in nightshirts!"

"I'll be silent as a grave!" Jessie rapidly assured.

Before she left that giant of a house she was thirty dollars richer and a lot wiser.

When Jessie had left Rhett could barely refrain from packing his suitcase and traveling to Arkansas at once. But first he had to organize his household and the care of the children, especially that of Bonnie. How easy it had been before Scarlett went away when he wished to travel. Scarlett had managed everything when he went on his brief trips. He never gave a second thought of how he left the house and the servants and he never gave note of how long and where he stayed. Scarlett had never inquired about it for she knew he would eventually be back. Before his marriage he had been a bachelor without a care in the world, free as a bird and when he had married it had been basically the same. Men stayed free despite matrimony. Why did he notice that so late? 

***

"Miss Mel-I mean Mrs. Wilkes, I would be forever grateful if you could take in the children. I wish I could say for how long but I don't know yet." Rhett said after he had sat down in the small crowded drawing room.

"Just say Miss Melly to me, everyone of my friends does say so. I'm glad that Scarlett's lawyer gave you the address at last, Captain Butler. Of course I willtake care of the children! I will be so happy to have them around, they are such delight! You know how much I love children, it won't be a burden, but rather a blessing for me! And Beau will be glad, too! He adores his cousin Wade." Melanie replied with her gentle voice. 

"Then everything is fixed up. I will travel as soon as possible, most likely one of the next days."

"Oh, Captain Butler, there's something I want to tell you. If it only weren't so difficult…"

"Go on, Miss Melly, I'll listen to whatever unpleasant you have to say."   
Rhett's smile was genuine and affectionate.

"It's about Scarlett. You have to handle her very carefully. She thinks you despise her. Neither does she believes you love her nor does she feel you respect her. Although she won't admit it, she suffer very much because of this. Promise me-

she broke off.

"Anything, Miss Melly!"

"Be kind to her, she loves you so!" 

_"Scarlett loves me?" _thought Rhett bewildered, too stunned to speak.

"Promise me" Melanie insisted.

"I promise, my word of honor upon it."

A more difficult promise he had never given to anyone.


	8. Part VIII

…And by the same eternal token,

Who knows just how it will end?-

This drama of hard words unspoken,

This fireside farce, without a friend

Or enemy to comprehend

What augurs when two lives are broken, 

And fear finds nothing left to mend…

He stares in vain for what awaits him,

And sees in Love a coin to toss;

He smiles, and her cold hush berates him

Beneath his hard half of the cross;

They wonder why it ever was;

And she, the unforgiving, hates him

More for her lack than her loss.

He feeds with pride his indecision,

And shrinks from what will not occur,

Bequeathing with infirm derision 

His ashes to the days that were, 

Before she made him prisoner;

And labors to retrieve the vision

That he must once have had of her… 

Rhett slammed the book shut and threw it idly into the empty seat beside him. No, he wouldn't shrink from his problems any longer; he couldn't afford to. He'd always gambled in his life, never walking away from the table, no matter how high the stakes. And now he would wager the largest bid of all- his heart, in the hopes that in doing so maybe he could ease her heart as well, and perhaps return them both to a time when he was himself, and she was too.

So many tragedies, so many missed chances, so many foolish, selfish passions swirling up, up, until a magnificent climax that for a moment shook his world and then fell sky diving in a bloody, primitive pool at his feet, and then-

The train jarred suddenly, wiping away the erratic thoughts from his mind as he reached for a hand rail, the train making its transition from movement to inaction. Moments later Rhett stepped off the train and into the garishly bright sunlight, squinting slightly as he took in his surroundings.

He'd been here before- during his tempestuous youth he'd passed through the territory as many other vagabonds had, seeking sanctuary in the obscurity that the untamed land and caves provided. But he never thought he'd see the day that his own wife sought sanctuary here. Sighing, he pushed his palmetto hat to the back of his head and went to inquire about getting transportation for the rest of his journey, and to see if there was someplace he could rest for the night. The months of frustration and worry were finally coming crashing down on him, the dark circles under his eyes and the weariness of his frame showing clearly to everyone who encountered him. So after some exchange of information, he made his way to a small boarding house in the middle of Little Rock, just along the river.

The location was less than desirable, he knew from past experience that such locations often housed whichever towns underground society, the one made up of cutthroats and prostitutes. Ironic that these same locations were also the beginnings of most towns, the place where all the "respectable" folk had once lived . But he shrugged with indifference, and went to the scantly furnished room that awaited him. Even a few hours of sleep on a paper thin mattress would be welcome after the last few days of hasty preparation and non-stop travel.

***

Rhett swore angrily and sat up as he heard a bottle smashing against the wall in the next room. He shifted his feet to the cold wooden floor and then got up to get dressed once more. 

He walked down a path between the rows of houses for a bit until he came closer to the waters edge and lit a cigarette, watching its fiery reflection in the water, watching how the moon played across the ripples and currents leaving a white veil behind that flickered like a diamond in the sun.

Sensing something approaching him, he turned quickly and cursed himself for leaving his pistol in his room. But as the smell of cheap perfume wafted up to his nose his defenses lowered.

"Hello, Lover!" Rhetts eyes slowly adjusted to the figure who stood before him, a buxom woman cheaply dressed, her face camouflaged in thick makeup. One of the many whores who lingered on the waterfront waiting for lonely sailors or chance thieves or murderers in need of companionship. He smirked and took a final drag off the cigarette before tossing it into the waves. "I'm not interested, madam."

She laughed thickly, and Rhett could smell the whiskey on her breath. "Pity! And you seemed just like the sort of man who could do with a bit of fun for an evening."

He be lying to himself if he disagreed with her, but instead he just turned and made his way back up the path and to his room. Yes, he needed female companionship, needed it badly in fact, but he wanted it from one woman alone, and it was almost as if his rebellious body sensed that no other woman could satisfy him the way she could, so it refused to cooperate with him in his attempts to prove it wrong.

Retrieving his luggage, two large suitcases, he set out on the road on foot, knowing that he'd never get back to sleep anyway as the sun began to rise in the distance, a faint pink glimmer that was just beginning to outline the horizon.

***

Scarlett stretched out luxuriously and yawned loudly as Pansy entered her room with her breakfast tray.

"Did ya have a good rest las night, Miss Scarlett?"

"No, actually, I didn't. For some reason, I felt incredibly restless and I spent most of the night doing more tossing and turning than I did actually sleeping."

"Is dis all you'll be needin', ma'am?"

"Yes, Pansy. I'll ring for you if I need you later."

"Yessum."

Scarlett picked at her tray for a while, then pushed it away, flopping back down on her pillow as she tried to sort out the distorted pieces of her dream from the night before, an all too familiar dream.

She was running, through a thick fog…and there was something ahead of her, something solid that she was drawn to- but no matter how hard, how long she ran, she could never catch up. It was as if that "thing" which she sought was running as well, and when she pushed herself harder, it did as well, so that they were both running at the same pace. But then something strange happened, something that had never happened in her dream before. She stopped running, and oddly enough, so did the figure that lingered in the distance. Scarlett was breathing hard, not from the running, but from fear. Now was her chance. Could she risk it? Could she make the next step, try and shorten the distance between them? No. She couldn't. Fear choked her, left her paralyzed in cold terror that she'd fall in to the dark chasm that lay between them…

Scarlett pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, trying to shut out the feelings that the remembrance of her dream had brought. But it wasn't her arms she wanted wrapped around her, she realized sadly. She wanted Rhett here, to hold her, to comfort her. Damn him anyway. It was his fault she was here, that she was once more suffering the very nightmares that she'd told him were over.

She placed her tray on the nightstand and getting up saw to getting dressed herself. No use bothering with a corset anyway, she planned on taking a long walk and it would be far too constricting. Thirty minutes later she was dressed in a cool green frock and her hair was up in a simple chignon. She glanced in the mirror briefly, thinking how foolish she was for doing so, if she didn't want to be conspicuous she ought not to care a fig about her appearance. 

Scarlett lightly ran down the stairs and out of the hotel. Ugh, it was already horribly muggy outside. One thing that she quickly learned was that after 8 o'clock in the morning the weather was often more fit for the abundance of 'skeeters and not for humans. No matter though, she just wanted to take a long walk, enjoy the abundance of nature, and try and sort out what to do next.

And that was a question- what should she do next? Go to Tara? Return to Atlanta? Or perhaps travel even more? She had plenty of money to do it if she so wished. It had been easy to obtain, not a hassle the way she'd imagined it would have been, the way Rhett had talked about it.

_"I'm riding you with a slack rein, my pet, but don't forget that I'm riding with curbs and spurs just the same."_

Of course, she realized now that the major reason behind his poisonous remarks was because of her feelings towards Ashley, but it still didn't lessen the twinge of anger that the remark had brought as well. God, how he had changed from when she'd first met him. How much she had changed as well. She certainly wasn't the youthful spoiled southern belle anymore, her greatest worry that Mammy wouldn't allow her to wear the dress she'd picked out, or that she'd catch hell for some silly prank she had played on Suellen or one of the darkie children. But what had happened to the carefree adventurer, the dashing blockader without a care in the world? The man that didn't give a rap about the south, the man who saw the south as his greatest enemy, and had considered its collapse his way of getting even.

_"What kind of fool do you think I am? Kissing the rod that chastised me is not in my line. The South and I are even now. The South threw me out to starve once. I haven't starved, and I'm making enough money out of the South's death throes to compensate me for my lost birthright."  
_

"Kissing the rod that chastised me…" Wasn't that exactly what he'd been doing ever since Bonnie had been born? Or had he discovered that he couldn't retrieve his birthright any other way?

So deep in thought, Scarlett didn't even notice the sleeping figure laying in the field until she'd fell upon it. "God's nightgown!" she cried out in surprise as the figure began to move.

Rhett had stopped to take a short nap during his journey, figuring he'd have plenty of time to show up at her doorstep before she arose; his body was worn from exhaustion, and knowing Scarlett, that probably wouldn't be until noon or so. Thus it came as a great surprise when he awoke to the sound of her startled voice and felt feet scrambling to get off of him. He moaned slightly, his body unused to sleeping on the hard ground, and sat up, removing the wide hat that shielded his face.

Scarlett was standing in front of him, her mouth a wide "O" in shock and horror.

"You know, there are a hell ova lot better ways to wake a man up in the morning than walking all over him, Scarlett."

"You…YOU! You're not supposed to be here! How did you find me- Oh! It was Melly, wasn't it? That lying filthy Judas, I trusted her and…you! Stay away from me!" Scarlett jumped back a few steps as he stood and dusted himself off, her chest heaving in shock and indignation. How could she? And Rhett, arrogant, sarcastic-

"Don't! Don't run, Scarlett! Melly didn't tell me anything- I swear to you. It was one of her little charity projects that leaked the information to me. I shan't lie to you and say I didn't try to gain your address through Miss Melly, but she was hell bent on leaving me in utter misery it would seem."

Scarlett studied his face for a moment in deep thought. He actually looked and sounded serious. Did he really mean it? Had he missed her, did he…love her? Really love her, so much so that he'd gone through every possible means to find her? She imagined he'd probably paid the person off somehow. And the way he was looking at her, so longingly, so incredibly sad and yet…thrilled? Almost like the way a little boy looks on a present that he'd been waiting for ages to receive; waiting for so long that he could barely believe it was true, yet he do anything to be able to unwrap it and reveal the treasure that lay inside.

Scarlett inhaled sharply and looked away, unable to hold his penetrating stare any longer. "And now are you?" she asked so quietly it was barely above a whisper.

"No." He approached her slowly, with caution. Rhett reached out and tucked a loose tendril of her hair behind her ear. Damn, she was beautiful. Something about her had changed, she no longer wore that hunted animal look, she seemed calmer, more at ease, her natural softness having returned to the surface. He allowed his hand to linger on the side of her face, and slid it down to her chin, tilting it up to see her face, look into her pale green eyes, bright with tears and trepidation. His eyes were drawn to her slightly protruding red lips, but clearing his throat he thought better of the things that were running through his head at the moment.

"Scarlett…I'm…" he swallowed hard and looked deeply into her eyes, his washed clean of everything save honesty. "I'm sorry."

She pushed him away then, a hurt look crossing his face at her action. "Sorry? And I'm supposed to forgive you, just like that?"

"Scarlett, I don't want you to forgive me 'just like that.' Both of us are guilty, maybe I am more so than either of us- and I'm willing to accept that- if you'll accept me back into your life. I love you, Scarlett O'Hara, more than I've ever loved any woman, and you're the only woman I'd ever chase for over ten years. But I'm tired of running Scarlett. I want to be with you, want to take care of you, want to run with you, not away from you. I'm a coward when it comes to you, I think you know that. You're the only thing I've ever encountered that I couldn't easily escape, the only woman I've ever fallen for."

"That doesn't excuse you though, Rhett. How the hell do you think it felt when I woke up that next morning to find you gone- to find out you'd gone from me to that Watling creature? I realize that what happened that night was just the usual for you, Rhett, but the things you made me feel were so foreign to me- and I wanted you there, with me, to tell me that what happened between us was…special. But you quickly dispelled any illusions I'd had and I realized what a fool I was. So I wanted to make you hurt the way I hurt, to see how it felt to be left exposed to the world as a fake."

"Nothing happened between Belle and I, Scarlett. I know you don't believe me, but it's the truth. I spent those days in a drunken stupor, raising hell with anyone who was stupid enough to come near me- thus the fat Yankee who was called out to Belle's because of my behavior. I was shaking in my boots, terrified that I'd been wrong, that you didn't love me, that everything that transpired that night was just a nothing but a vision of my overactive imagination. Scarlett, there hasn't been a single woman since you left…me. I can't stand before you and say that I didn't try to bed other women in your absence, but it went no further than that."

She scowled at him, but decided not to comment. "Well, I for one am not going to stand out in this heat any longer. Besides, I'm starving, I didn't eat much this morning, and from the looks of things you didn't either."

"I take it then, Mrs. Butler, that you're inviting me to join you?" He gave a half smile, knowing that despite the expression she wore on her face that she believed him.

"If that's how you want to interpret it, then yes, I am." Scarlett couldn't help but feign indifference to him; she'd be damned if she let on the fact that she was overjoyed at his seemingly appearance out of nowhere.

Rhett grinned widely, bowing jauntily to her. "Lead the way madam. I'm afraid I'm at your disposal, my pet, since I don't know this particular area at all."

Scarlett grinned evilly at his words, causing Rhett to grimace slightly, wondering what devilment was running through her head. "Come on, then, I think I could eat a horse." She looked at Rhetts offered arm for a moment before sliding hers through it, resting her hand lightly on his upper arm.

Breakfast was a quiet meal, both too wrapped up in their own thoughts and feelings towards the turn of the mornings events to speak. But afterwards when they sat sipping coffee, and most of the diners had left, Rhett reached across the table and took Scarletts hand in his, squeezing it gently when she looked up at him surprised.

"I've missed you, Scarlett. I must say, I haven't seen you looking this healthy in ages. I'm glad to see you feeling well." Rhett said with sincerity coming across in his voice.

"Thank you, Rhett, though I can't say the same for you; You look like you haven't slept in ages." Scarlett bit her lower lip and looked away after speaking. Damn, he'd think she cared about him now. She mustn't give in to him, mustn't let him hurt her again.

Rhett touched her face and turn her to face him once more. "Look at me, Scarlett." She scowled at him, annoyed by his actions, causing him to chuckle. "There now! Now I know I'm not dreaming- for there's none but you that could possibly look at me with such abject hatred in their eyes."

She rolled her eyes and spoke with out thinking, "I don't hate you at all, Rhett. I guess I'm just surprised to see you here." Scarlett paused for a moment then asked the question that had been floating through her mind all that morning. "So who did you pay off for the information on my whereabouts? I'll bet it was that ninny Prissy, though I can't imagine how she would have found out, she's so scatterbrained."

Rhett frowned slightly, as though in deep thought. "No, no. Quite wrong, my pet. I'll bet you'd never guess- I'll bet say: A box of bon bons against- a kiss." He leaned forward grinning at her cunningly.

Scarlett burst out in merry laughter. "You conceited fool!" Then she spoke in a mimicking voice "They do say I kiss very well."

"Do they now?" Rhett asked swiftly as he reached for the back of her head, drawing her to him for a kiss.

"Rhe..mph." Mother of God! What was he thinking- in public, and…God, it felt good to be kissed again, kissed like he wanted her, wanted her alone…

Rhett broke the kiss gently, resting his palm against her check. "What do you say we go up to your room…"

"If you think I'm going to fall into bed with you, you're sorely mistaken!" Scarlett hissed in a whisper.

"I wasn't thinking about- that, Scarlett. I just thought you and I might want to go somewhere more private. We have a good deal we need to sort out between us. I swear to you my intentions were as pure as the driven snow." His words were full of sincerity, but his expression was one of mischief, his dark eyes dancing.

Scarlett turned several shades of red as she noticed a few of the late diners looking curiously in there direction. "Yes, perhaps you're right." Scarlett stood as soon as Rhett pulled her chair out for her, and then escorted him up to her room.

"I never thought I'd see the day Scarlett O'Hara lived in a nearly barren room." Rhett remarked as he closed the door behind himself.

"Neither did I, for that matter." She walked over to a window and gazed out silently for a moment. "You know, I didn't always used to be the way I am." Scarlett inhaled sharply as she felt Rhetts arms wrap around her from behind, laying his head against hers softly.

"I know that. But you do know that I'll never let you go through that again don't you? Even if you do continue to worship Ashley Wilkes." Rhett sighed dejectedly as he felt her stiffen in his arms. Christ, why couldn't he just keep his mouth shut?

"I'm not in love with Ashley, Rhett, nor have I ever been," she stated as she turned in his arms to face him. "That's where all of our problems started, isn't it? I've had lots of time to think Rhett, and I think it's time we started being honest with one another. We've been letting our tempers, and our jealousies overwhelm us so much that we lost track of who we were. And somewhere along the way we lost our friendship. Believe it or not, I once considered you to be my best friend. But then you became so nasty to me- because of Ashley. I knew that, you see, but I never understood it, because you always made it so blatantly clear that all you ever wanted me for was my body."

"Ah. I see you've finally begun to see through my false façade. My wanting your body was a sufficient cover up for my wanting your heart- the cowards way of obtaining it, but then I'd never been faced with a challenge like you. It was for me a cruel irony that I couldn't seduce and enrapture the one woman who'd managed to capture my affections, and the most damning paradox being that her not wanting me made me need her more." He paused and played with one of her hands for a moment. "So if Ashley doesn't have your heart does that mean you have room to let someone else in?" Rhett asked quietly.

"Perhaps." Scarlett yawned suddenly. "It's not the company, Rhett, I just didn't get much sleep last night." Oh, what to say. She wanted to feel him wrap her arms around her, tell her everything would be fine again, be able to tell him that he already had her heart. But she could always do it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow was another day.

Abruptly she found herself swept up in strong arms, arms that lowered her gently onto her bed. She felt him sit down on the bed beside her, and she opened her eyes to peer up at him. He was flipping through an old book of poems that was lying on her nightstand. 

Scarlett smiled contentedly. "I'll let you rest with me if you'll read to me."

Rhett raised his brows speculatively. "You mean I'll get to sleep with my wife? Well, that's certainly not something I'll object to." He walked to the other side of the bed and sat upon the bed, laying against the backboard with Scarlett resting her head comfortably against his shoulder, and began to read.

***

Epilogue 

This is the end of the story, and one can most truly say that they did not always live happily. It is not in their nature, nor in the nature of humans in general. Their lives, like the pages in the old book that Rhett read to her that day, were sometimes torn, sometimes soiled. But other pages remained intact, pure and clean as the day they were first printed, none of the ink smeared nor words out of place, and often enough, these pages outweighed all of the rest. All their life before and all of their misfortunes had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they are beginning Chapter One of their own story, the one they were to create together, and which no one has ever truly read: for it goes on forever, and every chapter is better than the one before.

THE END


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